Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss testified this week about the years of harassment and anguish they endured as a result of Rudy Giuliani falsely alleging they engaged in ballot fraud to rig the 2020 election against Donald Trump while working as election workers in Georgia.
The mother-daughter duo separately took the stand as a jury considers how much Giuliani must pay them in damages for his defamatory claims about them.
“I can’t show my name no more,” Freeman, Moss’ mother, testified Wednesday. “I miss my old neighborhood because I was me. I could introduce myself. Now I just don’t have a name.”
A federal judge found Giuliani liable for defamation by default in August after he repeatedly refused to turn over evidence in the case. Freeman and Moss are seeking between $14 million and $41 million from Giuliani for defamation and emotional distress.
Giuliani admitted to making “false” statements about the women but disputed that it caused them damages in a July filing. (He did, however, tell reporters Monday that his past statements about Freeman and Moss are actually “true,” which could land him in more legal trouble.)
Freeman on Wednesday recounted the barrage of “racist” and “scary” text messages, emails and voicemails she began to receive just hours after Giuliani publicly accused her of submitting false votes for Joe Biden. She also testified about the infamous phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump named Freeman multiple times, calling her a “professional vote scammer” and a “hustler.”
Freeman said she was “devastated” when she heard a recording of the call.
“I just felt like, ‘Really?’ This is the former president talking about me? Me?’ How mean, how evil,” she said, choking up. “He had no clue what he was talking about. He was just trying to put a name to somebody stealing ballots, which was totally a lie.”
Moss took the stand a day before her mother, testifying through tears as she recalled the racist messages she received as a result of Trump’s and Giuliani’s lies. She said that she lost her job and that her family members were threatened.
“I am most scared of my son finding me and or my mom hanging outside my house on a tree, or having to get the news at school that his momma was killed,” Moss said.
Their emotional testimonies underscore the dangers of Trump’s vitriolic attacks on individuals — and on groups of people — in service of his political agenda. Time and time again, his supporters, mobilized by his rhetoric, have unleashed a wave of violent threats and harassment against private citizens and public officials.
Giuliani was expected to take the stand in his trial Thursday but ultimately declined to do so. It was “unfortunate if other people overreacted” to his claims about the women, he told reporters Monday, but added: “Of course I don’t regret it.”
